Weblog of Wesley Fryer

This is a good and important question, Paul. I am glad you’ve asked it.

If a U.S. school district’s legal interpretation of electronic communications archival requirements are that ANY type of electronic communication on any website and using any digital software program must be electronically archived, then certainly that interpretation is going to have a wholesale chilling effect on the instructional use of all web 2.0 tools.

Under that extremist interpretation, the school district would block all wikis, all blogs with open commenting, Google docs, any photo or video sharing websites with open commenting, etc. Essentially web 2.0 sites would be shut down to all students and teachers. Internet use would be limited to only static websites (web 1.0 sites) which do not permit any type of dynamic collaboration or sharing, as well as district-provided email accounts which are archived.

I would argue two things on this position:
1- The intent of the law was not to chill use of every website and software tool which permits collaboration and facilitates learning. The intent of the law was to provide documentation of network abuse and misuse. Districts should and must according to the law make good faith efforts to archive electronic communications on the district’s email server, but it is unrealistic and counterproductive to attempt to archive every outbound packet of data which is created by students, teachers, and other district staff members in-district.

2- I would point out that many districts DO permit the use of read/write web tools and websites for instructional purposes, and are still within the bounds of legal compliance with electronic archival requirements from the U.S. federal government.

I think this is a case of whether the district’s legal counsel is permitted to be “the tail that wags the dog” and completely chills / shuts down the collaborative power of digital technologies and the Internet. I know in some cases this IS happening in school districts. This is very important to address at multiple levels. If the district’s lawyer is saying, “You can’t let students and teachers use any websites that we are not electronically archiving” then members of the school board need to legitimately be asking some questions:

1- Are there other school lawyers with different opinions on this issue that we can talk with about this topic?
2- If the district is going to adopt this draconian filtering position and prohibit all read/write web tool access from the school network, how are teachers and students in the school district ever going to be able to practice and develop the skill set included in the ISTE NETS for teachers and students, and included in many state standards for educational technology?

This situation reminds me of two things: The EFF’s case against AT&T for data mining / wiretapping / electronic archiving, and conversations about E-Rate.

To the first point, I am not contesting the right of a school district or school organization to monitor and archive electronic communications on its network. I would contest the feasibility and desirability of an interpreted policy which essentially says every outbound packet has to be captured and archived. This is impractical, has a powerful chilling effect on instructional uses of technologies, is out of line with the intent of the law mandating archival of electronic communications, and rubs of at least some of the issues brought up in the above linked EFF lawsuit.

To the second point, when you ask some lawyer about an E-Rate question that is regulatory in nature, you quite often get the most conservative, extreme answer possible. When it comes to many legal issues, there are not bright lines. Sometimes there certainly are, but as I already mentioned we DO have school districts permitting teachers and students to use wikis, for example, and the district isn’t archiving every edit and comment that is going up on those wikis. Should those educators and administrators be thrown in jail or fined for recklessly endangering students online and failing to comply with U.S. laws which are (in some cases) apparently interpreted to require electronic archival of every outbound packet of information from in-district computers? I would say no.

Perhaps we need to change this law and legal requirement, as well as ask our leaders to clarify the law to address and stop this type of “chilling effect” interpretations? I do think we need an “E-Rate 2.0″ movement in our nation, which permits greater autonomy by school districts to spend E-Rate dollars for end-user equipment, hardware and software which includes educational content and curriculum, and collaborative technologies.

This IS a huge issue and not one I am adequately addressing in this post or follow-up comment, but hopefully this is helpful in highlighting some of the issues and at least a few of my thoughts in response.

Thanks for your comment and letting me know about Edmodo, Jose. I hadn’t heard of it and I’ll check that out! I like your analogy in your post that microblogging for educational purposes is like using an “online notice board.” Do you know if Edmodo has support for archiving posts, to address Paul’s concern above?